


slow burn

by andnowforyaya



Category: B.A.P, K-pop
Genre: Band Fic, Childhood, Family Issues, Gen, Homophobic Language, Hospitals, Money, daehyun-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-29
Updated: 2015-01-11
Packaged: 2018-02-27 11:40:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2691584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andnowforyaya/pseuds/andnowforyaya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At school, their teacher asks them, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”</p><p>And Daehyun thinks of his little family, his mother counting coins in the flickering light of the kitchen, and he says, “Rich.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I write to process things and B.A.P is going through a big thing right now with the lawsuit, and I've had this sitting in my WIPs for a very long time and thought I'd finally do something with it.

Daehyun is six years old and poverty is the lights that flicker on and off in his family’s shabby apartment above his dad’s shop; it is understanding that he will bathe first with his older brother, and the water will be cold and his mother will pull them out from under the spray if she thinks they are taking too long; it is going to bed still hungry and waking up empty and hollow and aching and slurping warmed-up thinned-out rice porridge from a small bowl; it is holding his brother’s hand as they walk to school, their parents gone, careful not to dirty up his uniform because the one on his back is the only set his family owns.

He never knows where his parents are anymore. His brother minds the shop after school and his father looks for work. His mother cleans for the people who live in the homes built high up on the hills around the city, and she returns with blisters on her knuckles and cracks in her smile. The people in those houses are leaving, trickling out of their wealth, and every day she returns with less.

She counts money on the kitchen table, separates them into piles.

Daehyun reaches for the coins, sometimes, when he is sitting beside her at night, counting with her, learning his numbers by five’s, by ten’s, by the colors on the paper bills. She slaps his hand away. “Don’t touch,” she says. “I’ll lose my place.”

The piles are never large enough. On the news and from the adults around him he hears things like _IMF_ and _financial crisis_ and _the value of the South Korean Won_ but these things don’t mean anything to him, yet. What matters is the piles are never large enough for his mother to be happy, to stop counting and fretting and slapping his hand.

There is never enough of anything -- water, food, space, time. He sleeps on the floor with his brother and wakes up pressed into a corner, the older boy’s bulk against him.

At school, their teacher asks them, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

And Daehyun thinks of his little family, his mother counting coins in the flickering light of the kitchen, and he says, “Rich.”

.

The problem is that he does not know how to be rich. He does not understand how to leave food on his plate; nor fullness. He does not understand how to take his time and enjoy himself because time is money and his family is always losing. He does not understand how some of his friends, years later, take trips with their families to amusement parks, to Seoul, to Jeju Island. He's never done any of that.

How do you spend time together? His family is never together. His father is always working. His mother is always working. His brother skips the last period of school in order to make it back to their little run-down store.

“Guess we’re the men of the house, huh?” his brother says, tapping his fist against Daehyun’s shoulder when Daehyun is sitting behind the counter in the shop with him, trying to make sense of his homework. His brother is three years older but seems a man already, broad-shouldered and voice rich. At times his hyung can be sunny and warm and dependable, and Daehyun treasures these moments in a little pouch right by his heart, because they are becoming fewer and farther between.

He loves his family but it is not enough simply to love. Love does not put food on the table, and it does not give them heat in the winter, and it does not keep their lights on, and he’s afraid it won’t keep them together.

His family does not care what he does with his afternoons, as long as he is back before sundown, as long as he is keeping up with his school work, because worrying takes time, too. It takes energy, and it is a waste.

His friends steal candy from the corner stores. Daehyun tries not to, but sometimes he is hungry. Sometimes that riceball winds up in his pocket, and he takes it out, after, in the park, climbing the monkey bars and laying across them to squint at the sky, eating the treat with slow, savoring bites, making it last.

They run to the arcade, coins jingling in their pockets. Daehyun never has any money, so he just watches as his friends battle monsters, shoot enemy soldiers, race fancy sports cars. It seems fun.

Sometimes he digs through the change slots but nothing ever surfaces, until one day, there is an extra coin, and another, and another. He pockets them and looks around. There is only one game not in use -- the coin-drop karaoke machine -- and he steps up to it, thinking.

He could save the money. It is a couple thousand won, which is not much, but he could bring it home and give it to his mother and she would probably pat him on the head, ruffle his hair, maybe even kiss him on the cheek.

But it is only a couple thousand won, and the machine is all lit up and bright, and Daehyun finds himself paying the fee, heart pounding in his chest.

It starts up with a melody, and shouts instructions at him. Daehyun presses some buttons and leans back and hopes for the best, and then a song begins that is a little dated, a little old, but he has always enjoyed singing along to it when the static-ridden radio in their kitchen plays it.

So he sings it, forgetting for a moment that he has wasted a coin on a trivial experience, forgetting for a moment that he is hungry and that he probably will not be able to buy lunch tomorrow at school so he needs to remember to pack it from dinner leftovers if they have any, because the song reminds him of his mother taking his hands and dancing with him in the kitchen, of _jigae_ bubbling away on their stove and filling up their apartment with the sweet, fragrant smell. He sings it, and when the song ends, one of his friends is standing by the machine, eyes wide.

“Wow,” he says. “That was really good.”

Daehyun flushes. He is not used to praise, and does not know what to do with it. “Ha ha,” he laughs. “It was stupid.”

“Well, it looked like you were having fun,” his friend says. “For once.”

Daehyun holds the microphone with white knuckles.

His friend says, “Are you going to sing another one? Here, you can use my money.” He puts it into the slot and leans against the machine before Daehyun can protest. “But do one that I like.”

Daehyun does a song that he likes.

He goes home and does not tell anyone what he has done.

.

Even after his father finds a good job and his mother starts working part-time, even after their lights stop flickering and their water stays warm for longer than a second, Daehyun is still hungry.

He does not know for what -- he has enough food and he has enough time and he has enough friends and his family loves him, so much, even if his brother is hard to get along with now that he is older and always talking about girls, about their bodies and their smell and the way they smile.

Daehyun does not care about girls. He does not care about their bodies or their smiles or their hair.

(No, that is a lie.)

He thinks about them, sometimes, or thinks about them in the way he imagines he is supposed to, thinks about how nice it would be to have someone to hold or to hold onto him, to call his own. Maybe he is hungry for that.

“You don’t like _anyone_?” his brother asks him. They are sitting behind the counter of the shop. People come in and pick up nails, hinges, tools. His father has been trying to get him interested in fixing things up around the apartment with him, but his hyung is better at it.

(“I suppose it’s all right,” his father always says. “At least your brother has the hands for it.”

Daehyun’s hands are small, like the rest of him. Thin fingers and blunt nails and soft skin. Slim. His mother likes them. His mother slots their fingers together and says, “Just like mine.”)

“No,” Daehyun says, fidgeting. “I like my friends. All the girls in class are weird.”

“Or maybe it’s just you,” his brother says, smirking.

Daehyun flings his pencil at him, and his hyung dodges, laughing.

At night he dreams that he has a yellow fire inside of him that is eating him from the inside out, and during the day he tries to keep it alight with rice and friends and stolen kisses in the park after school, but it is never satisfied, like perhaps it is a tapeworm in his stomach instead and he is starving, and this hunger defines him and he is searching, always searching, and life would be good if only he knew what he was searching for.

Everything is in place except for Daehyun.

Everything fits except for Daehyun -- he is the skinny kid in the back with the big mouth and little, pretty hands; he is something different; he is extra. Where does he fit?

At school, their teacher asks them, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

And Daehyun does not know.

.

After school, he goes to the coin-drop karaoke machine and sings. He likes it. He likes imagining his voice is that hungry fire inside of him and he screams into the microphone and it is like the flames squeeze out of him through his throat, and there is relief.

It is a rush, breathing hard after a particularly challenging song, his friends urging him to sing another, putting coins into the machine for him.

The attention is nice, too.

He goes home and his voice is raspy and his mother asks him, “Where have you been?”

And he says, “Nowhere.”

His brother shouts, “Liar. I saw you coming from the arcade. Wasting time playing games with your dumb friends.”

“Shut up,” Daehyun growls, trudging into his room to escape, but it is not very effective, as his brother shares the room with him, and follows him in.

“Don’t talk to your brother that way,” his mother scolds when his brother closes the door.

“Yeah,” his brother repeats nastily. “Don’t talk to me that way.”

“Get out of my face,” Daehyun says.

“Get out of my room,” his brother says.

They shove at each other. His hyung is bigger; Daehyun has always been small for his age, like he has gone without the proper balance of calories for so long that now when he has them they slide right from his bones, like there was never a place for them to cling to in the first place. He is small and soft and his eyes are too large for his face.

Daehyun goes down, and his brother pins him, his fist pistoning into Daehyun’s ribs.

“Get off me!” Daehyun says, coughing.

“Liar,” his brother repeats, swiping at his face. “Why are you lying?”

“Get _off_ me!” Daehyun screams.

Their mother's voice is stern and muffled through the closed door. " _Boys!_ "

His brother climbs off of him, sniffing, and Daehyun scratches at his ankle, spiteful. "God, you're so _weird_ ," he hisses, sidestepping his attempt at violence.

"Dickhead," Daehyun sputters.

" _Queer_ ," his brother says.

He leaves, slamming the door behind him.

.

Daehyun is in his last year of middle school when he makes the decision:

“I’ll attend the local high school and specialize in a science,” he tells his parents at the dinner table, “but can I also start singing lessons, now?”

They’d asked for him to prove to them he wanted it by providing the grades, and he’d done well over the past year, improving his studies and his relationship with his brother by virtue of mostly ignoring him.

His father frowns. “I thought you outgrew this. Singing is okay as a hobby but it is a hard profession,” he says. “Not very stable. Not like accounting, like your brother is doing. It isn’t something I thought you’d want to do.”

Singing is _all_ he knows how to do. He has no head for numbers like his brother and his tongue gets the better of him when he speaks, and his brain skips time: one moment he is focused in class and the next the bell has rung and he is on the steps to the next floor down. He flits through school like a moth; a thought catches him like a breeze and he is gone, somewhere, in his own head. Singing keeps him in place and in the moment, music like a tether.

Singing is all he knows how to do, and it is all that he is good at.

His mother says, “You’ll have to work very hard, darling,” brushing his hair back with her long fingers.

“I know,” Daehyun tells his family, grateful, indebted to them. “I will.”

.


	2. Chapter 2

His scalp itches with the treatment of chemicals that the stylists are subjecting to it. Today, they are dyeing his hair blonde. He sits in the salon chair and stares at himself in the large, flat mirror, taking in the dark shade of his skin that he’s always hated because of what it means. (That he was a wild child spending too much time in the sun, that his parents couldn’t reel him in, that he’d grown up different -- that he’d grown up rough. It doesn’t matter if it’s not true.) He looks at his too-big nose and the bags under his eyes. The blonde is going to make his skin seem even darker.

His vocal teacher had told him his head had gotten too big while he trained under him, laughing at his student when Daehyun had screamed into the phone his acceptance into a trainee program at a small entertainment company.

“I’m going to blow all of them out of the water!” Daehyun had told him happily over dinner that evening, his teacher’s treat for all of his hard work over the past couple of years.

“You mastered swimming in a lake,” his teacher said wisely. His cheeks were flushed from the soju he was not sharing with his student. “Now, you have to learn how to swim in an ocean.”

“Bah!” Daehyun told him.

He thinks sitting in a salon chair getting his hair dyed is his punishment, a reminder to keep his head about his shoulders. He does not expect to meet five other boys who have gone through the same ordeal the same day, six bright blonde heads altogether gathered around a black-haired manager.

“B.A.P,” the manager says. “You have trained together, eaten together, slept together -- and now, you will debut together.”

Daehyun reaches for Youngjae’s hand and holds it loosely with his fingers, grateful when Youngjae allows him. His hyung would have slapped him away, but Youngjae is not like that, has never been like that, with him.

“It’s happening,” Youngjae whispers excitedly out of the corner of his mouth, and Daehyun beams at his friend.

.

Exhaustion is a pit with walls too high to reach over, the upward crawl halted by the intensity of their schedules, making each slide down to the bottom more draining than the last. The only thing for them to do is to make a home down there in the thick of it, pretending it is just a couple of hours of sleep they need to make things right.

Daehyun practices until his throat fails on him, until his vision spots. He practices, but he is careful because he cannot land himself in the hospital and burden his family with the fees.

At least the others are with him, their tired faces when the stage makeup has cleared from their skins all wearing the same expression before they drop off into sleep. "We can do this," Yongguk says, "It will get better."

There are peaks and valleys. The peaks are good (awards and wins, song recognition and opportunities to volunteer, the band members whom he loves so much) but the valleys get deeper and deeper (their beloved manager Kang Seokgu leaving, Jongup’s shoulder injury, Himchan’s fingers and promoting as a quintet rather than whole, dropping weight and unable to keep it on, the dread of succumbing to sickness). They celebrate together but suffer together, straining for the other side of their exhaustion, only to be dragged back under.

But then, Daehyun stands on stage and sings and for a moment things are better. Singing, he can do. Singing draws the tiny hungry flame inside of him outward and it becomes a star for him to strive to reach, and he imagines he can hold that bright power in his hands, and it will give him energy and slap a huge smile across his face. He tries to pull the others with him; it’s all he can do.

On stage it is almost easy to forget the things he has left behind.

Off stage, in the dark of their dorm rooms, cramped by six into a space meant for three, he realizes he is still that little boy in his family’s old apartment above the shop wondering if there is enough love in the world to keep his family together, wondering if there is enough space for him, and he is not sure when he started seeing the other group members as his family, his brothers. They feed off each other’s energies like a self-sufficient organism. The head, the arms, the legs -- five parts for five boys, but there are six of them, and he is still trying to figure out where he fits.

The truth is that they were a team long before he joined them, that he is a parasite leeching off their carefully formed system, trying to pass as something necessary. He is not sure how long he can continue being a burden on his family. (For now, his father does not know how to talk to him and his mother _cannot_ talk to him without begging him to visit, please, and he thinks his brother despises him, the favored younger child, mama’s sweetheart, so right now his family are are the people in front of him and beside him and all around him, his five other brothers who are in the studios with him day-in and day-out, sweating until they bleed.)

He must make himself indispensable. He must carve out a place in their organism and claim a space for his own.

Daehyun is tired. They are all tired, fizzling out. He is a candle flame without a wick. He used to want to sing; now, the list of things he wants has expanded, or regressed back to when he was six and counting coins with his mother in the kitchen. He dreams of food, space, and time. Even with six boys, at least there is always warm water. He dreams of the perfect house the perfect distance from the center of the city, a perfect family. He dreams of his mother. She counts coins at the table and stacks bills into neat piles and he drifts closer to her, and suddenly she is huge; he comes up to her knees and she smells spicy and old like _jigae_.

Five-thousand, ten-thousand, twenty-thousand. The slick, slick slide of paper against paper.

“Mama,” he tells her, “I’m sorry. I’ve lost my place.”

“Darling,” she says, “keep counting.”

.

Himchan never makes it to the practice room that day. He is nauseated when he wakes up and his body is made of lead, and no one can move him. Instead of going to the studios, Himchan is taken by his family to the emergency room, and Yongguk goes with them. As they leave, Daehyun recognizes the pinched expression on Youngjae’s face as jealousy, and wonders if it is reflected on his own.

The ominous start to the day follows them to practice, where Yongguk has returned with a frown etched into his lips, and Daehyun realizes quickly his jealousy was misplaced.

They run through their set for the performance the next day a couple of times, and he feels fine, sweat beading over his upper lip and at his temples, and then, quite suddenly, he is _not fine,_ and his head spins like that time he got pulled under a swell at the beach, his lungs in his throat and his blood thin and moving much too quickly. Fainting is the most terrifying thing that has ever happened to him, the sudden loss of consciousness, the sudden void. 

He hits the floor hard, and exhaustion is that black pit and it is swallowing him whole. Later, Youngjae will apologize for not being there to catch him, but how could he have known, anyway? They were all struggling in the dark together.

A nurse is there when he wakes up, but no one else. The blankets are scratchy against his arms and his wrists are sore. Turning his head to the side takes all the effort in the world, and it is only to see the clear drip of an IV by the hospital cot and the curtains separating him from the outside world.

“There you are,” the nurse murmurs kindly. She does something to his pillow that makes it feel much, much better. “How are you feeling, sweetie?”

“Fine,” he croaks, and she tuts, though the expression on her face remains soft.

“Don’t lie in the hospital,” she say.

“How did I get here?” he asks. There is a fog in his brain but it is clearing. “Ambulance? Who brought me?”

“Your hyung,” the nurse says. “It wasn’t an ambulance, even though that would have been faster and better.”

“Yongguk,” Daehyun says aloud, as if to confirm.

“Hm?”

“Nothing, ma’am.”

“Go back to sleep,” she whispers. “You’re going to be here for a bit.”

Daehyun closes his eyes. Sleep is waiting for him like a child playing a game, hiding in the shadows to jump out as he passes by. It hooks him in the chest and brings him down.

.

The nurse is not there when he wakes up the next time; instead, it is one of their managers, hunched over in one of the seats by the bed typing a message on his phone. Daehyun must make a noise, because the manager looks up and says, “Oh good. You’re awake. Now we can get you out of here.”

A moment of utter, pure panic nearly launches him out of bed. How long had he slept? Had he missed the performance? Where were the others? Where was his family? Then the manager puts a hot dry hand on his arm above the covers and says, “It’s a few hours to the performance. You can handle it, right? They gave you medicine for whatever this is.”

The flutter in his chest prevents him from answering. There is a stone in his throat that is too heavy to swallow. How can he sing like this?

The manager continues, noticing his silence, “If you refuse, you will be responsible for the damages. Who knows how much they will ask you to pay? You’re the main vocalist. You can bet your ass they’ll file for damages if you’re not there. You _have_ to be there.”

This is a dream -- a nightmare. He had just wanted a couple hours of rest. He wishes he had fallen down the stairs instead; maybe a broken foot would have warranted him a few days, at least. Daehyun closes his eyes but the manager’s hand is still on his arm, branding his skin.

He knows he is trying to manipulate him, but this does not make it any less effective.

(He wonders, irrationally, if the file they have on him might contain the following details: Loves [cheesecake, sweets, sunrises, family, Youngjae]; Weaknesses [Youngjae, family, self image].)

The doctor comes in, the curtains swishing behind him, scowling at the manager. “Not this nonsense again,” he says. “I told you, it is very ill-advised for you to pull him out now. Have you contacted his parents? What do they have to say about this?”

“He’s over the legal age,” his manager says. “He can speak for himself.”

“He’s a child,” the doctor says.

Daehyun sees his mother behind his eyelids. She is huge in his dreams but tiny in real life, barely coming up to his shoulders. He misses her so, so much. Forget the possible fees for damages -- the bill from this hospital visit will be more than enough of a burden on her. He knows he cannot stay.

“I’ll go,” he says softly, saving his voice. “I’m a singer, after all.”

.


	3. Chapter 3

The sea of faces in front of him roils dark and heavy like waves before a squall, and he is trying his very, very best not to be sick on deck. Still, he lurches about on stage as if he were a faulty marionette. At least his voice box works.

The performance is hazy. He doesn’t remember over half of it. The hospital told him to hydrate himself as much as possible before exerting any sort of energy, so much of their time on stage consists of Daehyun keeping the water from coming back up out of his throat. Since the dance moves make his head spin alarmingly, he only does what is absolutely necessary, and foregoes the rest. As long as he sings, it should be okay.

He thinks it is Youngjae who helps him off stage, who offers an arm once they are out of the line of sight of the audience so that Daehyun can lean heavily against him as they walk down the steps. He thinks it is Youngjae who says, “We did well. You did well, Daehyunnie.”

Youngjae smells a bit rank from sweat, a hint of baby powder and old spice lingering above it in his skin. Daehyun thinks he falls asleep on Youngjae’s shoulder during the van ride home, breathing him in.

.

A loud staggering thump in the living room jolts Daehyun out of sleep. He’d been dreaming. He was back home under flickering lights and his mother was there with her _jigae_ and her money and her worn, tired smile.

“I’m sick of this!” he hears Himchan hiss, and knows Yongguk must be out there with him. Himchan probably returned sometime after their performance; he’d never been able to stay away for very long. (He and Himchan are very similar, Daehyun thinks.)

His hearing buzzes and goes in and out. He tries to go back to sleep. Next to him, Junhong shifts and then the mattress creaks as he rolls out of it, long legs finding the floor to stand.

“Where are you going?” His voice comes out in a thin croak. His heart seizes in his chest and he is suddenly, desperately afraid of being left alone.

“Just to tell them they’re being too loud,” Junhong whispers. “You should go back to sleep.”

“I’m coming with you,” Daehyun says, and begins the slow process of rising. His body aches like a fever, like all his bones are made of air and still trying to support the slop of muscles and fat that make up the rest of him.

Junhong waits for him, and then they open the door together. The creak of it interrupts the conversation in the living room, and the silence rings like feedback from a microphone.

Yongguk looks up at them from his seat on the couch, his eyes dark in the dim light, and now Daehyun can see the shadows underneath them. "Sorry," Yongguk murmurs, "did we wake you up?"

Himchan digs his big toe into the floor in his socks, arms crossed. His hair is standing up all around his head like he'd been shocked. Instead of asking them to be quiet, like he'd said, Junhong asks, "What were you talking about?"

Junhong takes up most of the doorway, and Daehyun clings to the back of his shirt, nearly a whole head shorter, feeling like the younger brother.

"Nothing," Yongguk says, but Himchan's eyes snap over to his figure, striking him with a glare.

"We were talking about how it's completely unfair, how the company is treating us," Himchan explains, looking at Yongguk all the while. Yongguk puts his head in his hands. "It's not -- responsible. Jeopardizing our health, not giving us breaks. Daehyun, they _pulled you out of the hospital_."

"Himchan," Yongguk starts to say in an effort to calm him, but Himchan is having none of it.

"No, Bbang. I'm tired of this. We're all tired."

Junhong moves forward and Daehyun follows, still clinging to his shirt. They shift in tandem; Himchan takes a seat on the couch and Junhong on the floor. Daehyun squeezes into the spot between their leader and Himchan and sinks down with his head in Himchan's lap. Himchcan runs his fingers through his hair, smooth and gentle. The analog clock outside their bathroom door clicks.

"Sorry I woke you guys," Himchan apologizes. "I'm just so angry. I can't -- I can't believe they did that to you. My parents didn't let anyone into my room at the hospital; the company  _knew_ they could get you. Are you okay? Daehyun, why didn’t you refuse? What if you had collapsed on stage? That was so dangerous."

Himchan's fingers are lulling him into that strange hollow space between consciousness and sleep, and Daehyun doesn't think before answering. "We can't afford it," he whispers, turning his face into Himchan's thighs.

Yongguk says, "What?", and Daehyun repeats, louder, "We can’t afford it. I couldn’t stay any longer, anyway, because my family can’t afford the bills. I can’t do that to my parents, not after three years, not after what I’ve put them through, not after all the times I promised--"

Suddenly it is too much for him to fathom. The ocean of faces from the performance earlier returns and swallows him whole. He feels very small and very useless. Himchan must say something, but his head is throbbing, and he stumbles back into his room, pitching forward onto his mattress and drawing the covers up around him again.

For a reason he can't discern, he picks up his phone and checks his SNS accounts. He's always loved being able to communicate with fans, and it's true that whenever he feels down, reading a few messages on Twitter brings him back up quickly.

Maybe, though, he's sunk too far down this time. Many of the messages are expressions of worry and concern, beseeching him and other members to take care of their health, to rest. They wonder where Himchan is, if he's okay. The silence from the company worries them. Briefly, anger on behalf of their fans replaces his exhaustion, and he types a quick message thanking them for attending the performance, explaining that Himchan had some personal matters to take care of.

His task complete, he throws his phone somewhere on the bed and curls up again.

Some time later, Junhong returns, the mattress dipping under his weight. "Are you okay?" he asks tentatively, and Daehyun pushes back on their bed until he's snugly pressed against him.

"Yeah," he says. "No. I don't know. Not really." All of his muscles ache and his head hurts. He doesn't know what it feels like anymore not to be in pain. Junhong holds him, their little secret that isn't much of a secret, and then Daehyun is crying.

"I just wanted to be a singer," he says between hitched breaths. "I just wanted to be able to help support my family. I just wanted them to be proud of me."

Junhong rubs his back, his voice thick when he says, "Shh, shh, they are. I'm sure they are."

"I can’t do this anymore," Daehyun says, and it kills him a little bit to admit.

Junhong keeps rubbing his back in little circles, like his mother used to do, drawing out his tears like water from a well. He's not sure if he falls back asleep, only that the next thing he is aware of is Youngjae on the bed behind him, crowding him up against Junhong. Baby powder and old spice. From somewhere else in the room, he hears Jongup whisper something, and then Himchan's returning low chuckle.

The entire band is in their room. It should feel suffocating, but somehow it's the opposite. Recycling air with his family, their organism, functioning as one. He can breathe better than he ever has before.

Yongguk clears his throat. It instantly brings images of the team in the studio, heads bowed, listening to his feedback, his advice, his direction. "Guys," he says, "do you trust me?"

"Hyung, what are you on about?" Youngjae mumbles. His breath tickles the little hairs at the nape of Daehyun's neck.

"Yes," Daehyun says. "Of course we do." He hears the others grumble their agreement.

"I have -- an idea," he begins hesitantly. "Himchan and I, we've been talking for a while. We think we have a good case; we think this is our best option."

He pauses, struggling with his words, and Himchan takes over. "The fact is, we can't continue like this. Something has to change, and we already know from experience that nothing will, if we ask nicely. We need to make a statement."

"What do you mean?" Junhong asks, as the pieces begin to click together in Daehyun's mind.

"You're thinking of filing a suit," Youngjae says, always quick on the uptake.

Yongguk sighs, a low, whistling noise. "Only if we do it together. It's the only way it would feel right."

A heavy silence follows. Junhong shifts imperceptibly closer, and Daehyun closes his eyes. He already knows he would follow any one of his band members into a fire, a black hole, or something worse. He waits a moment for Junhong and Jongup and Youngjae to come to the same conclusion.

"I'm in," he says, and with the same breath, everything falls into place.

.

**Author's Note:**

> [writing](andnowforyaya.tumblr.com) || [twitter](https://twitter.com/andnowforyaya)
> 
> [Russian translation here!](https://ficbook.net/readfic/4323206)


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